St. Paul Payne-Phalen: Problem apartment complex gets a new life, new name

A decorative bowl of fruit graces the inside of a refurbished one-bedroom unit at what used to be the Westminster Court Apartments in St. Paul on Tuesday November 27, 2012. (Pioneer Press: Richard Marshall)

Jose Muniz, 42, raised his eyebrows in surprise after hearing about the bedbugs and criminal behavior that once afflicted the apartment building he calls his home away from home. Muniz, an associate producer on a Twin Cities television show, has a wife and child in Chicago but spends his weeknights in an affordable efficiency apartment at the corner of Westminster Street and Maryland Avenue in St. Paul.

He and other tenants have begun moving into the properties formerly known as the Westminster Court Apartments. The new arrivals have positive things to say about the two buildings that once were infamous for bedbugs, rodents, broken appliances, piled trash and problems such as prostitution and drug dealing.

Equimax Real Estate, a Wayzata-based management company, bought the properties out of foreclosure this year and has finished remodeling the 32 apartments at 1205 Westminster St., with half the units leased out in less than a month. The second 32-unit building at 1225 Westminster St. should be ready by Christmas.

Equimax President Wade Shatzer said the remodeling, which began in mid-July, was expensive but not complicated. The most sensitive aspect of the project involved forcing all the previous tenants to relocate so his company could gut the apartments and start fresh. The two buildings are now known as Cornerstone Estates, the latest in his company's sizable portfolio of about a dozen Minnesota apartment "communities" from Stillwater to Rochester and Buffalo, Minn.

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At the Cornerstone Estates, rents start at $475 for an efficiency unit, $600 for a studio, $695 for a one-bedroom, $850 for a two-bedroom and $1,010 for a three-bedroom. "There's no place (nearby) where you're going to get these finishes for these price ranges," Shatzer said.

His current strategy involves screening prospective tenants with credit, income and criminal history checks. There also will be video surveillance outside the buildings.

A sign warns away passers-by at a boarded up building of 32 units undergoing renovation at the former Westminster Court Apartments in St. Paul. (Pioneer Press: Richard Marshall)

"Between the new Maryland Avenue bridge and that corner at Westminster, I think things are looking pretty good," said city council member Amy Brendmoen. "I think having a really stringent landlord is a good thing."

During a four-hour open house Tuesday, Nov. 27, Shatzer led a reporter into a transformed one-bedroom apartment that boasts new granite counters, wood laminate flooring and other fresh finishes. "This was the nest of the bedbugs," Shatzer said.

He said that when the buildings were inhabited, no amount of work on neighboring units would have made up for problems in the one apartment, which was piled high with trash. Several workmen suffered flea bites during renovations, he said, and additions such as new air conditioners quickly went missing or were undone when the apartments were inhabited.

Shatzer offered previous tenants damage deposits, $300 "signing bonuses" and their June rent back if they vacated by mid-June and waived all claims against the owner or manager, but some tenants chose to fight eviction proceedings until early July. They were ultimately forced to leave, although he relocated a handful of trustworthy tenants to other Equimax properties.

Leslie McMurray, executive director of the Payne-Phalen District Five Planning Council, fought the evictions, but she acknowledged Tuesday that the buildings were much improved.